Professional baseball adjusting to workers

 

After Major League Baseball owners’ 99-day lockout of players, it’s more obvious than ever that professional baseball needs everyday working people. Whether Major League Baseball or the MLB-subsidized Minor Leagues, baseball’s business leaders cannot rely just on America’s 1%.

 

That’s part of why MLB tries to market to regular families who can’t afford luxury skyboxes, and why minor-league clubs such as the Peoria Chiefs routinely offer promotions aimed at ordinary fans generally and working people in particular.

 

The Chiefs opened their 2022 home games April 12 against Cedar Rapids, and the team unveiled season promotions, including a few involving alternative names and uniforms – one that General Manager Jason Mott said pays tribute to the building trades. 

 

On May 28, July 15 and Sept. 3, Peoria’s ballplayers will take the field as the “Orange Barrels,” a nod to construction on the Murray Baker Bridge and throughout the city.

 

Meanwhile, on April 30, June 17 and July 30, Peoria’s team will wear jerseys reading the Peoria “Pork Tenderloins,” and every Thursday game will have players dress in “Peoria Distillers” uniforms.

Off the field, players and advocates are continuing to point to the poor conditions in which many minor leaguers work. Most players get five months of wages regardless of the year-round demands on their time and bodies.

 

Now, the issue of minor leaguers’ wages, hours and working conditions has caught the attention of state lawmakers who think that states may be able to help where the federal government has been successfully lobbied by MLB. A few state legislatures may be considering protections against poverty-level pay and burdensome contracts that essentially are take-it-or-leave-it pacts since minor leaguers aren’t represented by the MLB Players Association or their own union.

Pay had been between $12,000 and $16,800 a season (for perspective, the federal poverty level for an individual is $12,880).

 

“It’s a few hundred dollars a week paid out only during the season,” said Harry Marino, a former minor-league pitcher who’s now executive director of the nonprofit Advocates for Minor Leaguers group.

Speaking to Pew’s Stateline news service, Marino added, “Guys struggle with housing, nutrition and making ends meet on a fundamental level. The system is outdated, exploitative, and needs to change.”

Mounting pressure from the public, player advocates and athletes themselves may have resulted in modest improvements from MLB – which sets minor-league pay. Minor leaguers’ pay was increased this season, with Class-A minimum weekly salaries rising from $290 to $500, and Triple-A weekly pay increasing from $500 to $700. Also, MLB announced a requirement for teams to furnished housing for most players during the season.

 

That came about despite a Trump-era law that codified a special status for minor leaguers. In 2018, a 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion spending bill, on page 1,967, excluded minor-league players from the minimum wage, overtime and other protections in the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act.

 

Besides sparking outrage, the possibility of action seems to have happened, as some state lawmakers recognize that minor leaguers are now one of the few classes of U.S. workers whose profession is exempted from federal labor protections.

 

While the act gives the professional baseball industry a shield from federal labor standards, teams still are subject to state laws. Also, MLB officials have said that minor leaguers are seasonal trainees. In February, MLB owners’ lawyer Elise Bloom  told a federal judge that, as traines, minor leaguers should not have to be paid during Spring Training.

“During the training season, the players are not employees,” Bloom said during a hearing in an eight-year-old class-action suit. (His argument was rejected last month and the t set to begin June 1.

Former minor league players have been seeking damages from MLB for violating labor laws in Arizona, California and Florida, so the court fight could provoke proposals to use state labor laws and policies establishing employment status and related protections.

Minor League Baseball’s labor issue has been in dispute for years, but the first attempt to use state laws to provide protections Congress took away may be the Minor League Baseball Players’ Bill of Rights, introduced last month by California state Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat.

Becker’s bill would allow players to seek new contracts after four years of service and negotiate wages based on their market value. Its framework would replace the current seven-year contract with MLB’s team-controlled wages that players sign after they’re drafted. It also would allow players to seek compensation from endorsement and autograph opportunities.

 “I was really surprised,” Becker told Stateline reporter Alex Brown. “I’m a big baseball fan, but I didn’t know. I’ve started to hear a lot of different stories.”

Other lawmakers and candidates are getting involved, from Iowa Democrat J.D. Scholten, a former minor league pitcher running for a seat in the state House, to New York state Sen. Jessica Ramos, another Democrat who chairs that state’s Labor Committee.

Ag Lab volunteers share food they grow on site

 Since the holidays, catalogs for gardening tools and seeds might have piled up like paper compost, but Spring is here, and a group of volunteer gardeners at Peoria’s Ag Lab is preparing this season.

“We’re planning and will be getting starter plants ready,” says Susan McCormick, a research chemist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research since 1987.

“We’ll be shopping for seeds and everything locally, like at Kelly Seed and Hoerr’s and so on,” she continues. “We’re hoping to get a greenhouse extension here, so we may have to move the plot some.”

McCormick is one of a half dozen or so staffers who regular help, she says.

“I didn’t really know much about gardening itself,” she says. “It’s been a learning experience, and fun. It seems like we drag it out as long as we can.”

Busy with lab-based research on the job, McCormick says she’s found the hands-on efforts to grow produce from seed to be an enjoyable escape.

“It’s a nice change of pace,” says the Alton native.

The 45 x 63-foot garden on the south side of the Ag Lab complex on North University stems from a 2009 U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative launched as “People’s Gardens,” named in recognition of the USDA being known as “the people’s department” when it was founded in 1862 during Lincoln’s first term.

“People’s Gardens were focused on local USDA facilities,” McCormick says, tied to President Barack Obama's United We Stand program and its “Feds Feeding Families” project.

The local garden started the next year, and the Peoria effort has raised more than 14,000 pounds of produce since, donating it to food pantries and charities to help groups such as Loaves & Fishes and the South Side Mission serve the less fortunate.

After the pandemic derailed the 2020 season, the local group last year grew 2,200 pounds of food, including 1,350 pounds to Sophia’s Kitchen.

The gardeners don’t use pesticides but have had little problems with insects, McCormick says. However, typically, weeds are a common problem, and rabbits and deer were occasional nuisances despite fencing.

“It’s not like they ate a lot, but they’d leap over the fence and knock things down,” she says.

Reflecting on successful harvests, McCormick says, “Squash is pretty prolific, and we did well with potatoes and turnips and, by weight, cabbages.”

Again connecting to the 16^th president, she fondly remembers getting 150 Abraham Lincoln tomatoes.

“They were great, beautiful Heirlooms,” she says, laughing.

Seeing the fruits of their commitment – whether picking ripe vegetables or arranging for deliveries to area pantries – has been fulfilling, she says:
“It’s a sense of accomplishment.”

To revive rail service, persistence can pay off. So can patience.

 Passenger trains could return to Peoria.

Hooray!

Hold on…

Don’t plan to ride the rails to Chicago to see an exhibit, ballgame or concert yet. Amtrak’s 50^th anniversary was in 2021, but it’s been years that Amtrak fans like me have driven to Galesburg or Normal to get onboard.

Passenger service is needed, and soaring gas prices make rail look increasingly sensible, but returning Amtrak isn’t a matter of printing schedules and opening a station.

Challenges include upgrades to track, possible environmental impact studies along the route, working with freight lines, and lobbying for state support.

* Upgrades: “There are different levels of maintenance requirements to operate passenger rail,” says Tom Carper, a member of Amtrak’s board for 14 years and its former chair. “It is likely that much of the track will need to be upgraded.”

* Freight railroads: Proposals elsewhere have been deadlocked for years, sometimes due to resistant freight lines. “The level of cooperation when allowing passenger service on existing freight-only lines varies for different railroads and can depend on the existing capacity and quality of the right of way under consideration and other issues,” Carper continues. “Today’s [freight] trains are getting longer, some sidings are too short, and passenger trains are supposed to have preference [but] often that is not the case.”

* Environmental-impact studies: Marc Magliari, Amtrak Media Relations Manager in Chicago, comments,

“Generally, if the current ‘footprint’ of a railroad has enough room for improvements such as a passing track or a wider bridge, the environmental approval process can move quickly. If land needs to be acquired, important and lengthy environmental reviews are needed. Regardless, capacity improvements would need to be engineered, if needed, funded and then built.”

* As for backing from the state, the current governor and lawmakers may be more receptive than the previous administration and legislature. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner cut state contributions to Illinois’ Amtrak service, but Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Democratic lawmakers’ super-majorityenacted a 2019 capital bill including funds for new routes benefiting the Quad Cities and Rockford.

In 2011, Amtrak’s Feasibility Report of Proposed Amtrak Service, Chicago-Peoria says, “a decision was made by IDOT [the Illinois Department of Transportation]  that no through-train frequencies between Peoria and Chicago were to be considered.”

But things have changed in state agencies and Peoria.

A plank in Rita Ali’s campaign platform was restoring train service, and the effort was launched with a working group including former Congressman and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and involvement by organizations such as the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission.

Mayor Ali has said the City is committed, and the public seems engaged, with more than 30,000 people answering a survey about the idea. Progress encourages optimism, and momentum could continue this month when a new IDOT feasibility study is due. In May, following input from the Federal Railroad Administration and National Transportation Board, a federal report is expected.

The need is obvious to advocates.

Peoria is Illinois’ largest metro area without passenger rail service, and “everybody doesn’t own a car,” as  the Mayor’s said.

Train travel is more comfortable and convenient than long drives, much less short flights’ requirements to get to airports hours early, deal with parking, and bypass communities instead of linking them.

“Trains connect us,” Carper’s said. “Many [communities] don’t have any other public transportation to the rest of the country.”

Plus, adding Amtrak could jump-start the region’s economy, helping business, providing options for flexible or remote workers who commute, and bringing visitors.

“Passenger rail brings economic value to cities and regions, large and small,” Carper’s said. “Regularly scheduled passenger rail provides value to the quality of life by providing safe and accessible transportation.

“From my experience as the mayor of a college town [Macomb], 250 miles from Chicago, it is critical,” he continued. “Two round trips per day provide the flexibility of safe travel, with WiFi, avoiding urban traffic and parking issues for students, faculty and businesses. Passenger rail service is good for the economy. Much like broadband internet, transportation connectivity can be key for the future of rural communities.”

The project could cost millions of dollars over a few years. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is providing billions nationally, some of it earmarked for repairs and improvements to the system..

“The IIJA provides more funding for Amtrak and rail in the next five years than Amtrak has received in the last 50 years,” Magliari says. “We hope it will add communities such as Peoria to the Amtrak map, which is what we've been advocating with the AmtrakConnectsUS plan to add new or expanded service more than 160 cities.”

It may seem like “hurry up and wait,” but area residents need patience as well as perseverance.

“But enthusiasm is good,” Carper says.

ALWAYS IN JEOPARDY? The future of Medicare

 After two years of a pandemic that’s caused people to question health care, one would think a scheme to squeeze for-profit corporations between seniors and their Medicare benefits would result in protests. But as much of the press has focused on Critical Race Theory, mask-wearing, inflation, and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, it’s been a stealth attack on Medicare.

Resisting requests to drop a controversial health-care pilot program launched by Donald Trump, the Biden administration on Feb. 24 announced it’s redesigning and rebranding Direct Contracting, which critics say is another step toward privatizing Medicare.

Instead of ending Direct Contracting, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) gave the program a new name: ACO REACH (Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access and Community Health).

The program is set to take effect on January 1.

Under Direct Contracting, corporate participants were paid monthly by CMS to cover a specified portion of a patient's medical care. The companies – most of which are controlled by investors not health-care providers –are allowed to pocket funds they didn't spend on care.

Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) issued warnings about ACO REACH/Direct Contracting:

* ACO REACH will pay middlemen a flat fee to "manage" seniors' health, allowing them to keep 40% of what they don’t spend on care.

* Traditional Medicare beneficiaries will be automatically enrolled in ACO REACH entities without their full understanding or consent, and once enrolled cannot opt out of an ACO REACH unless they change primary-care providers.

* Like Direct Contracting, ACO REACH has virtually no limits on what type of company can participate; participants can be owned by commercial insurers, private-equity investors, and other profit-seeking firms, including current Direct Contracting entities.

* ACO REACH increases provider governance from 25% to 75%, but the companies are ultimately accountable to investors.

 

"ACO REACH is Direct Contracting in disguise," said Dr. Susan Rogers, a physician and PNHP president. "This new model doubles down on Direct Contracting's fatal flaws, inserting a profit-seeking middleman between beneficiaries and their providers.

"You can't slap a Band-Aid on a tumor and call it cured," she continued. “Direct Contracting—now ACO REACH—threatens the health of beneficiaries and the future of traditional Medicare. As physicians committed to the health of our patients, we urge HHS to abandon this rebranding effort and focus the agency's efforts towards strengthening and protecting traditional Medicare.

“The goal is to privatize all of Medicare through this program,” she added.

In Washington, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) last month got 50-some House Democrats to sign a letter to Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services, demanding an end to Direct Contracting.

"Trump-era Direct Contracting is a major threat to Medicare coverage, hidden in bureaucracy," said Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, adding that she’ll “fight tooth and nail against any and all efforts to privatize Medicare."

Also in February, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate Finance subcommittee on fiscal responsibility and economic growth, blasted Direct Contracting, saying it features “corporate vultures … already scamming Medicare.

“President Biden should not permit Medicare to be handed over to corporate profiteers,” Warren said. “Doing so is going to increase costs … The Biden administration should shut down the Direct Contracting model.”

 

Besides seemingly endless TV commercials featuring celebrities such as ex-NFL quarterback Joe Namath and former sitcom star Jimmie J.J. Walker hawking Medicare Advantage, retired Americans have received letters from CMS letting them know that their physicians are now part of Direct Contracting.

Although the government correspondence notes, “Medicare benefits have not changed” and “no action needed,” it comes across as, “Nothing to see here … don’t worry.”

However, health-care advocates seem to be saying, “Be afraid. Be very afraid,” as it’s said in the film The Fly.

“What Direct Contracting does is turn the public side of Medicare into a corporate gold mine,” said Diane Archer, president of Just Care USA.

Traditional Medicare reimburses health-care providers at set rates.

“Medicare was designed as a lifeline for America’s seniors and those with disabilities, not a playground for Wall Street investors,” Rogers said. “If middlemen in health care actually saved money and improved outcomes, the U.S. wouldn’t have the most expensive and ineffective health-care system in the world. We don’t need to put seniors through another failed experiment to prove this.”

Medicare Advantage since the Reagan administration has inserted the involvement of private insurance companies, some of which have used “up-coding” (where insurers exaggerate patients’ medical needs and risk assessments to maximize payments, but then minimize actual services, keeping the difference).is private insurance offered instead of and through Medicare, which costs taxpayers more, Archer says.

Direct Contracting /ACO REACH is Medicare Advantage under another name, except it’s not voluntary.

“The insurance companies are making twice as much money from Medicare Advantage than they do from employer-sponsored health insurance,” according to Dr. Ana Malinow, a University of California-San Francisco pediatrics professor. “Workers have no more money, employers don’t, but who does? The government.”

Direct Contracting, which also added a third party when it launched in 2020, is worse, critics say, because it works with seniors who declined Medicare Advantage, and it’s difficult to opt out.

Traditional Medicare administrative costs are in the single digits; Medicare Advantage is limited by law to less than 15%; DC has no limits.

“If the government has its way, by the end of the decade, every beneficiary of the traditional, entirely public Medicare will have a private, for-profit entity jammed between them and their health care,” wrote said Chicago journalist BrankoMarcetic, author of Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden.

“The largest remaining segment of the U.S. health-care system not dominated by corporate hands will become something else,” he said in Jacobin magazine.

Women's History month: healing and hoping in public health and organized labor

March is Women’s History Month,  and this year’s theme is “Women providing healing, promoting hope” – a fine way to recall and appreciate women in health care and in organized labor, past and present.

Citing contributions of Native American women in the fight for climate justice, African American women presence in ending slavery and working for civil rights and the Voting Rights Act; suffragists leading in the passage of the 19th Amendment so no Americans would be denied the right to vote based on gender; and LGBTQ+ women working for justice, President Biden’s Feb. 28 proclamation on Women’s History Month also made a point of praising women unionists.

“Women of the labor movement are achieving monumental reforms to help all workers secure the better pay, benefits, and safety they deserve,” he said.

“Despite the progress being made, women and girls — especially women and girls of color — still face systemic barriers to full participation and wider gaps in opportunity and equality,” he added.

Women’s History Month has been traced to a week-long celebration of women’s contributions to culture, history and society organized by the school district of Sonoma, Calif., in 1978. Two years later, President Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week. The U.S. Congress followed suit in 1981, approving a resolution establishing a national celebration. Six years later, the National Women’s History Project successfully petitioned Congress to expand the event to the entire month of March.

Globally, International Women’s Day, a worldwide celebration of the economic, political and social achievements of women, first occurred on March 8, 1911, and the United Nations has sponsored International Women’s Day since 1975.

Currently, the nonpartisan National Women’s History Alliance designates the annual theme for Women's History Month.

“Women have long advocated for compassionate treatments and new directions in public health and in women’s mental and physical health, the Alliance said. “Women have also historically led the way in mending divisions, healing wounds, and finding peaceful solutions. This timeless work, in so many ways and in addition to so many other tasks, has helped countless individuals in our communities recover and follow their dreams.”

The theme is “both a tribute to the ceaseless work of caregivers and frontline workers during this ongoing pandemic and also a recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history.”

Indeed, women hold 76% of all health-care jobs, according to the U.S. Census.

Meanwhile, organized labor has benefited from the dedication and talents of many women for decades, from Mary Harris “Mother” Jones to Peoria native Betty Friedan, the ground-breaking feminist who also was an ardent unionist who in the 1940s and ’50s worked as a writer and activist for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE),

Today, the most visible women leaders include National Nurses United (NNU) President Deborah Burger; Mary Kay Henry, leader of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Liz Shuler, the first female president of the AFL-CIO; and Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA).

Shuler grew up in a union household. Her father was a power-company lineman and she worked summers at Portland General Eletric while the University of Oregon. She first became active in union work as an organizer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245, and rose through the ranks.

“The coronavirus pandemic – coupled with our country’s prolonged shortage of jobs that provide living wages, good benefits, and adequate working conditions –  has created momentum for our movement on a scale we’ve never seen before,” Shuler told Harper’s BAZAAR. “For too long, women have been underpaid, undervalued, and expected to take on most of the unpaid care work. That’s why on the national level, we’re working to pass the Build Back Better Act, which will put gender equity at the center of our economic recovery where it belongs.”

Nelson as a young adult had to work four jobs, including as a substitute teacher and in sales, but in 1996 she was hired by United Airlines, where she’s worked since.

Early on there, a dispute over wages prompted Nelson to get involved in labor organizing. In 2002, when United declared bankruptcy, the union representing the airline’s flight attendants turned to then 29-year-old Nelson, who was active in the Boston Association of Flight Attendants union, to assume the role of chief of communications. In the years that followed, Nelson proved shrewd in the public relations department in both the face of the SARS outbreak that hurt international air travel, and after United attempted to cut workers’ pensions. By 2011, her impressive record in union commnications propelled her to international vice president, the union’s number-two leadership position, and three years later, she assumed the position of international president.

“I’m a representation of the people,” Nelson has said. “This is definitely not just about me. This is about whether or not our economy actually works.”

During 2019’s government shutdown, Nelson stepped up and said if the White House didn’t end it, she would consider calling for a general strike. Speaking at Reagan National Airport in Washington, Nelson advocated for the thousands of federal workers at U.S. airports.

“Many of these people are fighting for our country right now, and we are not paying them,” she said.

The next day, East Coast air traffic controllers didn’t show up for work, briefly grounding flights in New York, and hours later, President Trump announced a deal that reopened the government.

“I think that for the majority of people who were defined as essential workers—the majority of them being women and people of color—the pandemic shined a light on jobs that are oftentimes left in the shadows or cast aside,” said Nelson, who’s now organizing flight attendants at Delta Air Lines, one of the few airlines that still has a mostly non-union workforce.

History is still being made.

 

 

 

Unions organizing Illinois cannabis shops

 Legal marijuana is very popular and very profitable.

 Sales have skyrocketed even during – maybe especially during – the pandemic: almost $2 billion since recreational pot became legal in Illinois in January 2020, $10 million the first month pot was legal.

Last year, hundreds of millions of dollars was raised from sales, excise and local taxes, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office – some $100 million more than liquor. That revenue is funding social programs such as mental-health and drug-treatment services ($134 million), the state’s general-revenue and budget-stabilization efforts (also about $134 million), and administrative, public-education and local government aid (together about $60 million).

The industry has been predicted to generate 330,000 jobs nationally by the end of this year, and 63,000 new jobs in Illinois by 2025.

All that has meant cannabis workers’ increasing realization they need to unionize, and organized labor is responding.

“The solution to rebalancing our economy — making it work for all members of our communities, not just the wealthy few — is good jobs and a union for all working people,” commented Tom Balanoff, president of the Service Employees International Union Illinois State Council.

“No matter where we come from or the color of our skin, working people all want the same things: higher pay, thriving communities, and a fair shot at a good future,” he continued. “Don’t just take my word for it. Illinois cannabis workers themselves are speaking out for the good union jobs they and their families need to thrive.”

Workers at cannabis dispensaries are genuinely interested in organizing, not just following other, high-profile situations, from "Strike-tober" to ongoing activities at Amazon, Starbucks.

“Cannabis dispensaries are a real opportunity for labor, and have been for some time,” said Marc Parker, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 536 based in Marquette Heights. “I am also hopeful that Amazon, Starbucks and similar industries are not just a trendy situation. People working in these types of environments [have] real concerns in regards to safety, wages, benefits and the overall concern that their voice in the workplace will matter.”

Since UFCW unionized the first two cannabis dispensaries in Illinois – Cresco in Joliet and Sunnyside in Lake View – organizing has accelerated. UFCW nationwide has been hearing from cannabis workers seeking representation, and Central Illinois is no exception.

“UFCW Local 536 initially received multiple inquires from cannabis workers seeking representation,” Parker says. “Ultimately, our International awarded the jurisdiction of cannabis workers to UFCW 881 out of Chicagoland.”

Based in Des Plaines, Local 881 is UFCW’s Illinois and Northwest Indiana Local, representoing about 34,000 retail and food workers.

“Most cannabis workers are now reaching out to Local 881 directly,” Parker says, and “Local 536 will continue to refer cannabis workers to Local 881: (847) 294-5064.”

In greater Central Illinois, cannabis dispensaries are operating in Bloomington, Canton, East Peoria, Galesburg, Normal, Pekin, Peoria and Quincy.

In Illinois, there has been employer resistance. Several dispensary companies selling pot in several states have hired “union avoidance” consultants to fight their own workers.

Nevertheless, rank-and-file comments show some determination.

“They’re rolling in the money, and they’re not giving us any scraps,” said Patrick Vinson, a Curaleaf worker  in Mokena, speaking to the Chicago Sun-Times.

UFCW, which represents about 1.3 million workers in supermarkets, drugstores and nursing homes in the United States and Canada, has substantial resources and a mission statement of sorts about cannabis:

“We represent tens of thousands of cannabis workers across the U.S. in dispensaries, labs, delivery, kitchens, manufacturing, processing, grow facilities and more — helping workers secure better wages, protection from unfair discipline, and great benefits with a union contract.

 

“We have been instrumental in working to advocate for the good jobs provided by the medical and adult-use cannabis industry,” the international union added. “Wherever cannabis is legalized, the UFCW is committed to building a successful industry with a thriving, diverse and skilled workforce.”

Kim Cordova, president of UFCW Local 7 in Colorado, said, “When workers recognize their true value and their own solidarity, they win. We are honored to have the privilege to represent [those] workers.”

In Illinois, Teamsters Local 777 also is busy organizing cannabis workers, but mutual interest seems more prominent than a rivalry with UFCW. Plus, labor has plenty to do.

“As far as members, or potential members, of Local 536 in the industries that we represent, we were left with little choice when it came to the COVID pandemic,” says Parker. “We needed to report to work to allow the community to get the groceries they needed to feed their families, and to help take care of the elderly. Our members had a seat at the table to discuss and implement safety precautions. Those who were not part of the union, in our industries, did not have a voice to express their concerns in a meaningful way, and I am a firm believer that they should have a seat at the table.”

 

Some of Illinois’ cannabis retailers where workers are organizing

Enlightened in Schaumburg (Teamsters)

Cresco in Joliet (UFCW)

Curaleaf in Skokie (UFCW)

Greenleaf in Rock Island (UFCW)

Medmen in Oak Park (UFCW)

PharmaCann in Schaumburg (Teamsters)

Sunnyside in Lake View (UFCW)

Verilife in Ottawa (Teamsters)

Verilife in Romeoville (Teamsters)

Zenleaf in Highland Park (Teamsters)

Zenleaf in Lombard (Teamsters)